97 points Vinous

The 2023 Cabernet Sauvignon Beckstoffer Dr. Crane Vineyard is deep and quite potent almost uncharacteristically so for this St. Helena site where wines tend to be silkier and more finessed. Readers will have to be patient as this deceptively mid-weight Cabernet Sauvignon packs a pretty serious punch. Here partial aging in concrete seems to have closed the wine down a bit. This is another wine that responds so well to aeration. - By Antonio Galloni on November 2025 The 2023s are the best wines I have ever tasted from Realm wines that seem to presage the next chapter here. Winemaker Benoit Touquette made the 2023s before departing to pursue other projects. The blends were finished by winemakers Chris Cooney formerly of Dana Estates and Kelly Fields who came over from Tench Vineyards. Realm was already moving in a direction that favored a bit more freshness than in the early days a transition that seems to have been accelerated by the cool nature of the 2023 vintage. All the 2023s are exceptional but I especially love the Houyi Cabernet Franc. It’s a wine that has it all. Congratulations to Proprietor Scott Becker and his team. It was not that long ago that Realm was a virtual winery that relied exclusively on purchased fruit and sub-optimal rented winemaking spaces. Today Realm is an elite estate winery that owns several top vineyards and three fully operational winery sites.